ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elettra Bietti

Elettra Bietti is an Assistant Professor of Law and Computer Science at Northeastern University, a Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University and an Affiliated Fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project (ISP).

POSTS BY Elettra Bietti

11 July 2024

Elettra Bietti

Online Speech at the US Supreme Court in Moody v. Netchoice

The First Amendment of the US Constitution raises some of the most difficult legal hurdles for regulating the global digital public sphere today. In Moody v. Netchoice, the US Supreme Court heard appeals from two judgments, an appeal from a decision of the Fifth Circuit declaring that Texas’ social media law H.B. 20 did not violate the First Amendment, and an appeal from a decision of the Eleventh Circuit finding Florida’s social media law S.B. 7072, instead, unconstitutional. These laws are similar in that they both attempt to impose must-carry and non-discrimination obligations on social media platforms, which in practice amounts to requiring them not to discriminate against conservative users’ posts. The compatibility of these two laws with the First Amendment cuts across a plethora of crucial issues on the future of social media regulation which the court could, but didn’t fully, address. Continue reading >>